猎户座飞船试飞将开启火星探索之旅

For the first time since Apollo 17 returned from the moon in 1972, NASA is scheduled to loft an astronaut capsule on Thursday to soar beyond low Earth orbit.

美国航空航天局(NASA)预定本周四把一个可以载人的太空舱发射到低地轨道之外的地方，这还是1972年阿波罗17号从月球返回之后的第一次。

No one will be aboard this flight test of the new capsule, Orion, but NASA hopes it is the first step toward human exploration of the solar system, including an eventual landing on Mars. Orion’s first manned mission is planned for the early 2020s.

新的太空舱名为“猎户座”(Orion)，这次试飞不会载人，但NASA希望它会开启包括登陆火星在内的人类新一轮太阳系探索的第一步。猎户座首次载人飞行任务安排在2020年代初。

“Thursday is the beginning of that journey,” Mark Geyer, Orion’s program manager, said at a news conference on Tuesday.

“本周四是旅程的开始，”“猎户座”项目负责人马克·格耶(Mark Geyer)在本周二的新闻发布会上表示。

Orion, which looks like a larger version of the cone-shaped Apollo capsule, is sitting atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Liftoff is scheduled for 7:05 a.m. Thursday, minutes after sunrise. In case of bad weather, the launching can be pushed back by up to two hours and 39 minutes.

“猎户座”的外形与阿波罗(Apollo)锥形太空舱相近，但是体积更大，它已经搭载在了佛罗里达州卡纳维拉尔角空军基地的德尔塔IV重型火箭上。升空时间定于本周四上午07时05分，日出之后不久。如遇恶劣天气，发射最多可延迟2小时39分钟。

The rocket’s second stage should push the 11-foot-long Orion into an elliptical orbit that reaches 3,600 miles above the Earth’s surface on its second orbit. (By contrast, the International Space Station is about 250 miles from Earth.)

火箭的第二级将把11英尺（合3.35米）长的”猎户座”推送到一个椭圆轨道上，其第二轨道距离地球表面约3600英里（参考：国际空间站距离地球大约250英里）。

Orion will then re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere at 20,000 miles per hour, close to the speeds of a capsule returning from the moon, and temperatures on its heat shield will approach 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

然后“猎户座”将以每小时2万英里的速度重新进入地球大气层，这与太空舱从月球返回的速度很接近。而“猎户座”隔热板上的温度将接近4000华氏度（约合2200摄氏度）。

At the end of the four-and-a-half-hour flight, it will splash down in the Pacific Ocean, about 600 miles off the coast of Baja California, and will be pulled from the water by an amphibious Navy ship, the Anchorage. The capsule will then be trucked back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for closer examination.

四个半小时的飞行结束后，“猎户座”将会坠入距离加利福尼亚州海岸约600英里处的太平洋水域，由美国海军两栖舰“安克雷奇拉”号(Anchorage)打捞出水，然后用卡车运回佛罗里达州的肯尼迪航天中心，接受仔细检查。

The flight, estimated to cost $375 million, will provide a full-scale test of the performance of Orion’s parachutes, heat shield and other systems, with 1,200 sensors recording data.

这次飞行估计耗资约3.75亿美元，它使用了1200个传感器来记录数据，将全面测试“猎户座”的降落伞、隔热罩和其他系统的性能。

“We expect it to go fine, but you really have to fly it to test it out,” Mr. Geyer said.

“我们认为这次飞行会很顺利，但你必须做升空测试才行，”格耶说。

While the capsule will not be carrying any people, it will be taking mementos and artifacts. They include a small sample of lunar soil, part of a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil and several artistic works, like poems by Maya Angelou and a recording of the Mars movement from Gustav Holst’s “The Planets.”

虽然这次试飞不会载人，但太空舱里会装有一些纪念品和工艺品。其中包括一小份月球土壤样品，一块霸王龙化石的一部分和一些艺术作品，比如玛娅·安杰洛(Maya Angelou)的诗歌，以及古斯塔夫·霍尔斯特(Gustav Holst)《行星》组曲中的火星部分录音。

Also aboard will be some items from “Sesame Street”: Cookie Monster’s cookie, Ernie’s rubber ducky and Grover’s cape, part of a collaboration between NASA and the children’s television program to promote science and math education.

另外还有《芝麻街》(Sesame Street)的一些道具：饼干怪兽(Cookie Monster)的饼干，厄尼(Ernie)的橡皮鸭和格罗弗(Grover)的斗篷，这是NASA与这个儿童电视节目合作，促进科学和数学教育的项目的一部分。

After the flight test, NASA’s progress for future astronaut missions will be slow, hemmed in by tight federal budgets and competing visions of the agency’s future. Orion’s next flight, also without people aboard, is not expected until 2018, and the first ride for astronauts would not occur until at least 2021.

由于受到联邦预算的严格控制，以及人们在NASA的未来愿景上存在分歧，在这次试飞结束后，NASA在宇航员未来任务方面的步伐将会迈得很缓慢。“猎户座”的下一次非载人飞行任务预计将在2018年进行，它的首次裁人飞行最早也是2021年了。

“We feel really fortunate to be in the budget plan, a bipartisan agreement on the budget plan, and our job is to execute to that plan,” Mr. Geyer said. “Yeah, I wish we could go faster, but I think this is a good plan.”

“被包含在两党赞成的预算计划之中，让我们感到非常幸运，而我们的任务就是执行那个计划，”格耶说。“是的，我希望我们的步伐能更快一些，但我认为这个计划很不错。”

The next destination is also unclear. NASA is pursuing the idea of capturing a small asteroid and taking it to the neighborhood of the moon, and astronauts would then fly in Orion to the asteroid to take a look. NASA officials contend that this “asteroid redirect” mission would be within its budget and would develop technologies necessary for the eventual trip to Mars.

下一个任务仍不明朗。NASA希望捕捉一个小行星，并把它带到月球附近，然后宇航员将乘坐“猎户座”飞到小行星上去看一看。NASA官员表示，这个“小行星重定向”任务在预算范围之内，而且可以推动最终登陆火星所必需的技术发展。

Some skeptics have questioned whether Orion, originally part of a program started under President George W. Bush to send astronauts back to the moon, is even necessary, or a waste of billions of dollars.

“猎户座”原本是让宇航员重返月球计划的组成部分，该计划在乔治·W·布什(George W. Bush)担任美国总统期间启动。一些怀疑者质疑“猎户座”是否有存在的必要，觉得这可能是在浪费数以十亿计的美元。

The Obama administration canceled Orion and the entire moon program as too expensive and too far behind schedule. But many members of Congress disagreed, and NASA revived a stripped-down version of Orion to be used as a lifeboat for the International Space Station, then resumed a design very close to what had been canceled.

奥巴马政府取消了”猎户座“项目和整个登月计划，理由是它的费用太昂贵，而且远远落后于计划日程。但国会很多议员并不同意取消它，于是NASA重新启动了一个精简版的”猎户座“项目，将其作为国际空间站的救生艇，它的设计非常接近于被取消的那个。

NASA also started work on a heavy-lift rocket known as the Space Launch System that will carry Orion on future launchings. Together, the rocket and the capsule are estimated to cost $19 billion to $22 billion.

NASA也已经开始建造一款重型火箭，名为太空发射系统(Space Launch System)，它将在以后的发射任务中搭载“猎户座”。火箭和太空舱总共将耗资190亿到220亿美元。

Some House Republicans have pushed to revive plans to return to the moon, but have not proposed funds to build a lander.

众议院的一些共和党人已经在努力恢复重返月球计划，但尚未提出建造着陆器的资金方案。